Shortcuts updating when I haven't accessed

john539

I often create shortcuts to news articles and save in My Documents.

The Date Modified will be the date I created the shortcut.

I have just noticed a number of shortcuts I created in August, all BBC news articles to do with the riots, have suddenly updated so now the Date Modified is today 26/12/2011, even though I haven't accessed those articles today or recently.

I have noticed this happening before.

Any idea why this is & what triggers this ?

danthemoneysavingman

may be due to clearing your icon cache. it's not important, as long as they still point to the right articles.

john539

danthemoneysavingman wrote: »

may be due to clearing your icon cache. it's not important, as long as they still point to the right articles.

I don't want dates updating of their own accord, as it's useful to sort items by date they were saved/created.

I'm just curious why Dates Modified of saved shortcuts sometimes seem to get updated, possibly when I access BBC news website months later.

john539

In Windows Explorer, I've just been paging down the files/links in My Documents and a mass of shortcuts (about 60) have been updated with Date Modified updating to current date/time.

As you page down the files/links, the icons of shortcuts get refreshed/updated.

Could it be this ?

alanrowell

Rather than using the "date modified" use "date created" instead - just click using the right mouse button on "date modified" and tick "date created"

John_Gray

For technical reasons (largely due to the incompetence of Microsoft system designers/programmers over the years since DOS 2.0) the "date modified" field is the only one likely to be accurate. Date accessed and date created can be very incorrect.

I also get the modified date of shortcuts/icons on my desktop updated by some unknown mechanism, those being for Word and Excel. I have no idea why this happens, but the chance of being able to do anything about this is vanishingly small.

spud17

Don't forget things are going on all the time in the background, perhaps Windows or antivirus are doing background checks and accessing the files without you being aware. I'm with John Gray in that you almost certainly won't be able to do anything about it.

john539

alanrowell wrote: »

Rather than using the "date modified" use "date created" instead - just click using the right mouse button on "date modified" and tick "date created"

That is a work around that I can use, but I would prefer Shortcuts Date Modified not to update of their own accord.

I prefer to sort files in Windows Explorer by Date Modified, rather than Date Created, as other files (.txt, .doc) I am using are sorted by date they were last saved/being used.

Strange, that for many of the shortcuts, the Date Modified is still same as Date Created.

I'm curious what triggers certain shortcuts to get refereshed/updated.

I can't see a pattern or action I'm doing that triggers it.

When you scroll down files in Windows Explorer (in Windowss XP), the shortcut icons get refreshed.

I'm wondering if that has anything to do with it.
But it doesn't seem consistent.

I've just looked again and another load of 30+ shortcuts from April/May have had their Date Modified updated to now/today.

spud17

I've just looked again and another load of 30+ shortcuts from April/May have had their Date Modified updated to now/today.

By looking at them, Windows will record that the file of the link has been accessed, even though you haven't actually used the link.

john539

spud17 wrote: »

By looking at them, Windows will record that the file of the link has been accessed, even though you haven't actually used the link.

I'm not clicking on shortcuts directly, I'm just scrolling down Windows Explorer which is listing the shortcuts & other files.

I'm not looking at them, but it seems Windows/Windows Explorer is checking something & updating date modified for some reason.

spud17

You are looking at them, may be not directly, but Explorer is listing them for you to see, that counts as needing to update the info re modifying. I think it's a bit like the old philosophy conundrum, "is something altered by looking at it?" (Anyone feel free to post the correct quote/question).